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Dorset Council and Network Rail are celebrating after winning over £1.1m in special government funding to improve road safety in Weymouth by removing the rail tracks from the old Weymouth Harbour Branch Line.

The Department for Transport (DfT) announced today that Dorset Council was successful in its joint bid with Network Rail for funding to dismantle and remove the rails and to reinstate the carriageway. This will remove an ongoing hazard to cyclists and other vulnerable road users, reducing the number of incidents resulting in personal injuries.   

I know the Tramway has been mothballed, but has the statutory formal closure procedure for the line and Weymouth Quay Station been started yet? That procedure is required by the Railway Act 2005 I believe.

The line is “permanently out of use”, and no longer shown in the online sectional appendix, but I’ve been monitoring this for years and don’t recall any recent closure procedures as per the 2005 Act requirements...

Perhaps its effective closure predates the Act?

NR agreed to give the council until the end of 2015 to make a decision on their tram plan. The deadline passed and the line now stands to be closed permanently on 8th May 2016.

CONTROVERSIAL plans to remove Weymouth's historic harbour railway line are on track to start this autumn.

Drivers are being warned of disruption as roads will need to be closed when the project gets underway in October.

Work to start on removing tramway on October 5th

As posters have correctly said previously, it is highly likely that the Poole/Wareham - Weymouth line will be downgraded to branch line status in the next few years, then finally closed. (Similarly, Yeovil - Weymouth line also closed).

If you look back at the massive loss of Weymouth rail infra-structure in the last 50 years, in 50 years time @ 2070 it is totally apparent that Weymouth will not have a rail connection at all, unless there is major rail/tram investment, or its saved by very rich heritage rail enthusiasts.

Yes, one can't help thinking that any long-term switch to home working will seriously undermine the finances of the London to Weymouth line. And the fuss a year ot two ago over the proposed switch to one direct train to London an hour with the other becoming Weymouth to Portsmouth train will seem quite odd in retrospect.

And as you say, the Yeovil to Weymouth line looks even more vulnerable.

A 155-year-old railway line in Dorset is being "wiped out without a goodbye", a campaigner has said.

Weymouth Harbour's tramway tracks, which have been disused since 1999, are being removed.

Train driver Andy Christie wanted to run a velocipede - pump bicycle - along the rails before they were pulled up but said his event was not supported by Dorset Council.

The authority said organising such an event would take 13 weeks.

Plans to remove the tracks won more than ?1m of Department for Transport funding in February after the council and Network Rail declared they could not be reused due to their "deteriorated condition".

Mr Christie, who works for CrossCountry in Birmingham, said he came up with the idea of a farewell event when he holidayed in Weymouth last month.

"Originally I wanted to run a steam train along it, but that would have been 700 tonnes so I settled on a velocipede which is about the same weight as a Mini Cooper car," he said.

He added: "I'm incredibly sad my plans were not supported by the council. It's a completely wasted opportunity.

"Now 155 years of history is being wiped out without a goodbye."

film footage on BBC spotlight 18:30pm local news on monday 5th october.

If you can record it,its available for TWENTY FOURS only 

It is hard to see where such (negative) opinions can possibly originate.

Commercial Road in Weymouth is now open from the King Street junction to Westham Road following the removal of the old rail tracks.

Access into Westham Road is now from the north and there's a temporary pedestrian crossing in place at the bowling green.

The area left by the tracks has a temporary surface for the moment as Commercial Road will be resurfaced from kerb to kerb at the end of November

Photo in Dorset Echo website

https://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/18812515.road-reopens-weymouth-rail-tracks-removed/

Not much of an epitaph, but there it is, gone.

A great example of the keyboard warriors that every newspaper of every town has contributing comments to their articles.  They all seem to live in the place that has the most corrupt officials, least competent workmen, and lots of other views that were clearly deemed too controversial and had to be deleted.

I get the impression that a story about a broken electric toaster would elicit much the same comments from the same darkened box-rooms. Entertainment must be hard to come by in that neck of the woods, since the Olympics left.

I've heard no report or suggestion of the lifted rails being perhaps donated to a heritage railway somewhere.  It might sugar the pill a little for some of those most upset by what has happened.

In my limited experience of removing tram old lines from under roads removing them intact may well have been more expensive than removing them in small chunks.